Greetings, visitors, and welcome to our funny little blog. Blog-o!
is written by me (Amy)—I'm a stay-at-home mother who loves to
read, write, bake, and blog about all of those things and anything
else—and my husband Blake, who is a full-time work-from-home
coder who likes to bike and eat my baking.

This blog is hard
to put into a category—some days it's a
mommy blog, some
days it's a book
blog, some days it's a coding
blog, some days it's just an
annoying self-absorbed
emo blog. It's not what you'd call a focussed writing project.
But it's us, and some people think we're pretty amusing. We'd love
it if you stay awhile, poke around, maybe drop us a note. Enjoy!

(Note to regular readers: I wrote a
guest post for Allie at No Time For Flash Cards and she was kind enough to link back to Blog-o!, so I thought I'd better say "Hi" to those nice people.)

A while ago I read the latest Kathy Reichs: 206 Bones. You
know, if it were up to me, I wouldn't bother with Kathy Reichs.
I really only read them because my mother reads them and it's nice
to talk about them with her.
Anyway, I guess I must like them well enough because I do read them.
In this one our feisty heroine finds herself trapped in a tomb,
struggling to remember how she got there and find out how to get
out before it's too late! The mystery was mysterious
and satisfyingly resolved, but my very favourite part of the book
was right at the end, when Reichs let her character, Tempe Brennan,
stop talking in sentence fragments for a heartfelt paragraph
about the field of forensic anthropology. It was clear that
it was Kathy Reichs talking, not Tempe Brennan, and equally clear
to me that I would rather read a book about Reichs than about Brennan.

A Handful of Timeby Kit Pearson. Twelve year old Patricia
is sent from her home in Toronto to stay with her aunt and cousins—
strangers to her—at their lakefront cottage in Alberta, while
her parents sort out the terms of their divorce. Unable to get along
with her cousins, she explores on her own and finds a pocket watch which
takes her back in time to when her own mother spent her twelfth
summer at the lake. Patricia divides her summer between her mother's
childhood and her own, and discovers how to connect with her cousins
and with her present-day mother. A Handful of Time is a beautifully
written book with believeable, rich characters and a satisfying
ending. Also, it made me cry. A keeper for the girls' bookshelf.

The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Livesby Leonard
Mlodinov is a stats book. I love stats—I really should have
done stats at school, if any math—but it's hard. The human
brain is not wired to understand risk and probability. The good
news is Leonard Mlodinov makes it much easier to understand. This
book goes over a lot of the basic principals of probability:
sample space, the law of large numbers, bell curves, standard
deviation, chi-squared. All that is the build up for what this
book is about, which is how much more stuff is random than we
think. Humans love to tell stories about the world, and when
something apparently significant happens we would rather construct
a narrative about why, than recognize that whatever it was was
probably statistically inevitable, or at least not caused by
whatever we're attributing it to.

This was one of the books I bought myself for my birthday, and I'm
really happy to own it because it provides such good explanations
for so many stats concepts, and despite being fascinated by
statistics, I need to constantly refresh my understanding of it.
Having this book on my shelf will make that a much less painful
experience.

Speaking of bookshelves, my to-be-read shelf is two feet long and
I committed to reading most of it before attacking my to-be-read
list at the library, which is 50 books long (the maximum you're allowed
to place on hold) or my to-be-read list on my computer, which is
fifteen books long. (It would be longer, but I deleted it by accident
a couple of weeks ago.)

As I say, I committed to reading most of the books on my physical
bookshelf, but then I realized I'm not all that interested in reading
a lot of them. Most of them are books that other people have given me
to read, and I'm not excited about them at all, not in the way I'm
excited about the books on my lists. I've got a dozen or more
not-exciting books between me and the exciting books I want to read:
that's not right. I've decided I'm going to sit down with all those
books and reevaluate them. The ones I'm not interested in I will pass
on, with no guilt. Life is too short to read books I'm not excited
about.

2009 started with a lot of snow. Delphine (then 5) was in Senior Kindergarten
in the afternoons, so our days were punctuated by daily trips to
and from school in the big orange stroller. Cordelia (then 3) caught a
nap in between the drop-off trip and the pick-up trip, but I had
to wake her up almost every day.

Blake had been laid off from his job in December, but rehired
immediately as a contractor, working from home. It took a while
to sort out a routine, but he eventually settled his "home office" into
the big white chair in the living room. Needless to say this isn't
ideal, but it's nice that he has a job, and it's nice for me to have a
little extra company during the day. (Company, not help: he's not
all that much more useful than Thomas the cat.) Working from home
was leavened by occasional days spent at the University of Toronto
working with a professor friend and his students.

Cordelia's mornings were spent, three days a week, in Nursery School,
where she was much beloved by staff and classmates alike.

While the girls were off at their schools I occupied myself with the
usual Mum stuff: looking after the other girl, baking, housework,
and snatching time to read plenty of books and magazines. Monday evenings
was devoted to choir practice: our February 2009 concert was
Rossini's Petite Messe Solenelle and in May we performed Brahms'
Ein Deutsche Requiem (my favourite oratorio ever).

Gradually the weather warmed up, Blake had his birthday, and March
break rolled around. We didn't go anywhere special (travelling at
March Break is madness) and we avoided all the museums (going to
museums at March Break is madness) but instead spent the week
around the neighbourhood, seeing friends.

In April I enlisted the help of my father-in-law and a handy friend
of his to help me buy and install an amazing play structure in
the backyard. We have a giant backyard (for Toronto) but there wasn't
a whole lot to do back there. Now there is!

Also in April, Blake finally got around to converting the $200 Bianchi
he got at a garage sale for $30 to a fixie. Translations: a Bianchi is
an Italian make of bicycle; a fixie is a bike with no gears—the
pedals are attached directly to the rear wheel by the chain, so if
you pedal faster the wheels go faster, if you stop pedalling the wheels
stop (eventually) and if you pedal backwards the wheels go backwards.
This style of bike is much beloved of bike couriers and other people who
like a lot of control over their bike.

In May, Delphine turned six and I made her a rainbow cake. She had a
little party with some friends at our house.

June was notable for the end of school, as always, and for the first
real warm days of summer. I poked at the garden a little bit, put up
a new composter and moved the vegetable garden (again). I think the
garden ended up worse—messier, less organized—at the end
of summer than at the beginning,
but I have a better idea of what I want to do with it.

The beginning of July saw us at a lovely wedding. For the first few weeks
of July the girls and I amused ourselves around and about the city:
we visited the Ontario Science Centre and the lake, and went to the
library a lot. Unfortunately the Toronto municipal employees were on
strike, so the park bathrooms were closed and all the city classes
and day camps were cancelled. It was disappointing—Delphine
was really looking forward to going to camp at Riverdale Farm.

At the end of July the girls and I left Blake alone in the now-smelly
city of Toronto (the garbage men were on strike too) and flew to
Saskatchewan to visit my mother. We went fishing, visited a cattle
farm, went swimming, walked through the woods, and celebrated my
birthday. My mum and the children had a great time together.

As soon as we returned to Toronto, the girls' other grandfather
picked them up at the airport and took them to their cottage for a
few more days at the beach while Blake and I enjoyed some
extremely rare alone time.

As August drew to a close we squeezed in a little more summer fun.
we went to the amusement park on Centre Island where Delphine rode
a pony and Cordelia and I went on a roller coaster. (I've decided
I'm not a roller coaster person.) And I took the girls to their first
IMAX movie, Under The Sea. Summer's last hurrah was a fancy afternoon
tea at the King Edward Hotel.

September brought big changes for the children: Delphine started
full-time school, entering Grade One, and Cordelia started Junior
Kindergarten. Big changes for me too: only one school to drop off
and pick up at, and mornings to myself—bliss! Both girls are
doing famously at school and adore their teachers.

Since September we have all been well-occupied: the girls with school,
me with the Parent-Teacher Association and Blake with work. (He
has just been offered a permanent full-time job with Mozilla.)

It's not yet December as I write this, and I suppose something terrifically
exciting could happen in the next month, but I'm just anticipating
a choir concert (Ralph Vaughan Williams' Hodie), some decorations,
plenty of food, friends over to sing carols, far too many presents
and a nice winter break from school. Who knows... we might even have
snow!

I'd like you to meet Max. Max is my new Macbook. New to me—he's
actually refurbished. He's the first computer I've had to myself since I was in high school. Max has a 2.13 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, and
2 GB of RAM. He's running Snow Leopard, and he's fast. Max doesn't
make me wait for anything.

I called him Max because all our computers have people names, and
because he's all white, like Max in Where The Wild Things Are.

Max is my work computer. I couldn't get anything done with the old
laptop I was using because it was basically too slow to load any web
pages, so I asked Blake to lend me $1000 of "our" money. I said
I would pay it back. This agreement makes me uncomfortable and
slightly unhappy, but I suppose that's a conversation to have with
Blake. And at least I got Max out of it.

Last year Blake and I got sucked into the CBC's version of
How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria, mainly on account
of Barrowman Barrowman Barrowman, but also because I love
singing contests. After it was over, I decided it would be cool to
watch the movie of The Sound of Music with the girls. As it
turned out, it was both too long and too scary. Delphine was
scared by the stern Captain, and also by the Nazis. Nevertheless,
I decided to take Delphine with me to see the Toronto stage
production. She's never seen a musical (or a play, for that
matter) and it seemed like the right time. Plus I wanted to go.

Unsurprisingly, Dephine didn't want to go, but Blake and I convinced
her that the show would be less intense on stage, and that either way it
would be a fun day out with me. (Cordelia stayed home with
Blake.)

So this Wednesday I picked Delphine up at school at lunchtime,
and we took the subway downtown together to see the matinee. We stopped for
barbeque pork buns and egg tarts at Urban Bakery and then
went to the theatre where we found our seats (and a deluxe
booster for Delphine), surrounded by middle schoolers on field
trips. (They behaved beautifully, apart from some untoward hooting
during the first kiss.)

The show was wonderfully staged, with gorgeous sets and
evocative lighting. The singing was great, the big numbers were
satisfyingly big—my favourite was "Do Re Mi": both educational and
breathtakingly energetic. It wasn't too scary for Delphine—the
Captain was stern for much less time, and even the Nazis seemed
less threatening. Little Nazis far away on a stage are less intimidating
than big closeup Nazis in your living room.

One genuinely creepy moment for me was when they dressed the
entire Princess of Wales theatre with Nazi flags for the Austrian Music
Festival scene. They hung swastikas above all the boxes, and a giant
Reichsadler flag billowed down from the ceiling. It was chilling, unexpected
and very effective. (I wonder if they did the same thing in the English
production.)

My only complaint about the show was the weird marble-mouthed mid-Atlantic
accent in which Elicia Mackenzie delivered Maria's dialogue. I couldn't
place it at the time but in retrospect it reminded me of an incomprehensible
hybrid of Agent Smith from The Matrix and Mythbusters' Jamie
Hyneman. Between the weird accent and the snappy delivery, I missed
a couple of lines of dialogue. The dude playing The Captain delivered his lines
in much the same way, so I guess it was a directorial decision.

All in all, a successful outing. Delphine asked to go to another show with
me. I said we would go again next year.

Today the girls and I went for our H1N1 shots. The shots have been available
for a few weeks now, so the big lineups have waned and we only had to
wait for a few minutes to register. The girls were both pretty chipper about
getting their shots, but I was a little nervous. Most of the people I've talked
to about it said it hurt like crazy and kept hurting for days. The nurse
said I should go first because the girls would cry, but I was all, "My kids
won't cry! You don't know my kids!"

Delphine kept assuring me it wouldn't hurt, and indeed, despite my
fears, the injection hardly hurt at all. It's a little achy now (four hours
later) but nothing like I expected. (I wonder if that's because I had
what I suspect was H1N1 last week?)

Then it was Delphine's turn. The nurse had me hold her legs between
my legs and pin down her arm, which seemed excessive. The needle
went in and Delphine started to cry. "That hurt!" She kept crying for a little while, just enough time to worry Cordelia, then she pulled herself together and it was Cordelia's turn.

Cordelia came up on my knee without hesitation, took off her shirt and made a show of leaving it stuck on her head like hair, but when the
time came for me to hold her still she freaked out. I really did have to clamp
her down and she still managed a little wiggle while the needle was in
her. Then she had a good howl, no doubt freaking out all the other kids
in the room. She got a band-aid ("Band-aid!", she sobbed) and then settled
down.

Since the shot, Delphine has been fine and Cordelia has been
a little whiny. She had mostly forgotten about the shot until she changed
into her pajamas and seeing the bandaid reminded her, so she
affected a Quasimodo lurch and moaned, "When I put clothes over my flu shot it
hurts!" Awww. Then I let her brush her own teeth and she forgot about it
again.

Tomorrow Blake's going to get the shot, and we will have a 100% household
herd immunity rate. Hooray! And then just two months until seasonal flu shots.

I typed this recipe in for a friend, so I'm going to post it
here to get more value from my typing. This recipe is from
the Reader's Digest Quick, Thrifty Cooking book which is
an awesome all-round cookbook for yummy everyday food.
I made this cake lots of times before I even realized it's
vegan—it's certainly not labelled as such in the book, but it's
definitely quick and thrifty:

Vegan Chocolate Cake
1 1/2 cups unsifted all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vanlla extract
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup water
Preheat the over to 375 degrees F. Grease and flour an
8" x 8" x 2" baking pan. In a mixing bowl, combine
the flour, granulated sugar, cocoa, baking
soda, and salt. Make a well in the centre of the
mixture, and add the vanilla, vinegar, and oil,
then gradually stir in the water. Continue stirring
until thoroughly blended, but do not overmix.
Pour the batter into the baking pan and bake,
uncovered, for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a
toothpick inserted into the centre of the cake
comes out clean. Do not overbake; the secret of
this cake is moistness. Cool in the pan on a wire
rack for 10 minutes, then remove the cake from
the pan to the rack to cool completely.

Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Lifeby Martin
E. P. Seligman, Ph. D.. Martin Seligman is one of the pioneers of
Positive Psychology, the study of the psychology of normal life and happiness,
as opposed to psychological pathologies. This book is about
optimism, which Seligman claims hinges on how you explain
the bad things which happen to you. When something nasty happens
to you and you believe the cause was personal—it was
your fault, pervasive—it will affect your whole life,
and persistent—it will never go away, then you are
cooking up a big batch of pessimism, which in big enough doses
leads to depression.

This book is touted as a self-help book, but as such it went
far too much into the history and theory of learned helplessness,
and cognitive behavioural therapy. I enjoyed the backgrounder, but if
you just want the advice part you could skip to Part Two or even
Part Three.

If you're prone to mild depression, or if you just want to be
happier, this is a useful introduction to the new(ish) theory
of changing your mood by changing how you think about your
life.

The Flu Pandemic and You: A Canadian Guideby
Vincent Lam, M.D. and Colin Lee, M.D.
(2006) is a guide to the pandemic. It was written with the
avian flu pandemic (H5N1) in mind, but since 2006 H1N1 has come
to the fore. Fortunately the issues are all but identical.
(Thrillingly enough, H5N1 is still out there and could strike at
any moment!) The book includes, among other things, the history
of flu epidemics and pandemics, an explanation of the WHO
pandemic stages, how to prepare for a pandemic, how to limit
the spread of flu, and how to care for others with the flu.

The most interesting thing was the degree of preparedness the
authors recommend. A while ago I read that Cody Lundin book,
When All Hell Breaks Loose, and he advocated some pretty
extreme levels of preparedness, including planning alternative places
to poo if the water system goes down, and figuring out how to
keep your house warm if the power (or natural gas) system
fails. Lam and Lee don't go that far, but they do recommend
keeping plenty of food, water, and medical supplies on hand,
and even a camp stove to cook on.

The Flu Pandemic and You is written clearly and informs without
alarming. The chapters on preparedness and caring for sick people
make it worth buying to have on the shelf for reference.

Elijah of Buxtonby Christopher Paul Curtis is a novel
for children, about Elijah, the first free black child born in his
Buxton, Ontario hometown. Elijah is a fragile boy, sensitive and
scared of snakes. This story takes him through an adventure
which tests his courage and gives him painful insight into his
parents lives before they escaped slavery.

The characters in Elijah are complicated and believable,
and the story is rich in plot and historical detail. I enjoyed
every page of Elijah and can't wait until the girls are old
enough to read it too.

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kidby Bill
Bryson is Bryson's memoir of his childhood in 1950's and 60's
Des Moines. Bryson is always gold, and this book is no different.
By the time I finished this book, I almost wished I had grown up
in 1950's Des Moines. The freedom that the children of the 1950s
had, and the lack of external stimulation, are things I wish
my children could have (even just for a few months so they
appreciate all the bells and whistles of 2009 life more).

I bought a bird feeder a while ago, and I'm trying to find
a book which will tell me what I should put in it to
attract various specific birds, how to ward off squirrels
and deter sparrows and pigeons, and maybe (bonus) provide a
reference guide to the birds I'm likely to see in
Toronto.

Backyard Birdfeedingby Mathew Tekulsky is not that
book. It is about (perhaps unsurprisingly) backyard birdfeeding,
but it's a personal account of the author's experience with
his birds in his backyard, and his backyard is in California.
It was still pretty interesting and gave me some ideas
for how and what to feed, but didn't have the specific
information I want.

Birds at Your Feeder: A Guide to Feeding Habits, Behavior,
Distribution and Abundanceby Erica H. Dunn and Diane L.
Tessaglia-Hymes isn't that book either, but it's cool.
It's an analysis of the data collected through Project
FeederWatch, a survey of bird feeder birds across North
America begun in 1987. It's organized by species, which
each bird getting a clear drawing, description, and a
map showing geographical distribution and abundance.
Even more helpful is a list of what each bird likes to eat
best.

Prize for weirdest bird feeder story goes to the woman
who dragged two horse carcasses home from the vet and
counted the vultures who came to clean up.

This book is much closer to what I want, and is probably
worth buying, but I still want some kind of beginner's
guide to feeding Toronto birds (and not Toronto squirrels).
The search continues.

Writers Digest Guide to Query Lettersby Wendy Burt-Thomas
is a guide to writing all kinds of query letters: queries for
magazines, books, agents, columns. There are lots of examples,
both good and bad, and several lists of "don'ts" to ensure that
your query at least doesn't suck. Which seems good
enough to get onto a few editors' short lists.

Starting Your Career as a Freelance Writerby Moira
Anderson Allen is a catch-all guide to working as a
magazine writer. It includes information on finding markets,
developing ideas, writing queries, formatting manuscripts, and
more.

There's also a compelling chapter on business writing, guest-written by
Peter Bowerman. He makes it sound easy
to earn money by writing, and I'll definitely check out
his book, The Well-Fed Writer: Financial Self-Sufficiency
As A Freelance Writer in Six Months or Less. (Seems like
we're veering into snake oil territory again.)

No-one is actually going to get me any of this stuff, because
we don't do presents for grown-ups, but that hasn't stopped
me from accumulating a list of material desires.

Cool skullcandy earphones. I have these lame over-the-head
earbud-ish earphones which always fall out of my ears, and I'm
pretty sure most of the sound goes somewhere other than into my
head. I'm torn between big fat earphones so everyone
can tell I'm listening to music (and not to them fighting, say),
or little wee earbuds that I can stash in my purse.
Only if they come with a little wind-ey holder for the wire,
though. I get so tired of unwinding headphone wires.

Freddie
Demistache. I love moustaches, I love
Freddie. I love jewellery. I think this is brilliant.

Starbucks Takeout Mug, Tall Size. Blake has his giant Venti
mug which he brings every time we go to Starbucks, and I feel
left out.

Oui by Lancome perfume. I haven't worn perfume since Delphine
was born and I miss it.

A waffle iron.

What Not To Wearon DVD. I know, it seems like an
odd show to buy, but ever since we cancelled cable I haven't
been able to watch it—it's not downloadable anywhere.
(The problem with downloading shows is that the less geeky they
are, the less likely anyone has uploaded them.) Anyway, I miss
Stacy and Clinton and all their advice and ideas.

Positive parenting, or democratic parenting, is essentially
parenting as if your children are human beings who deserve
the same amount of respect as the adults in the household.
It is about raising your children to understand that they
are part of a community, with rights and obligations,
and it's about getting them to behave without punishments
or rewards. It's also evidence-based parenting, with
a grounding in scientific research and knowledge
of neurological development and psychology.

I was raised with respect and I want to raise my children with
respect, so I am using the tools of positive parenting to
guide me.

My leaders in this endeavour are Alfie
Kohn and Alyson Schäfer.
They have both written excellent books on the subject. Both
Alyson Schäfer's books are about positive parenting (although
I prefer The Good Mom Myth), and Alfie Kohn's parenting book
is called Unconditional Parenting. If you're interested in
positive parenting I recommend you pick up one or both of those
books. (And then everything else Kohn has written, because he's
awesome.)

I'm not an expert on psychology or positive parenting, so I'm
not going to give out advice here, but what I will do
is write about situations in our house, and how we managed them.
Some of these situations go smoothly, some of them don't, so
I'll talk about what I think worked, and what I wish I had done
differently. I hope this will give other parents some ideas about
how to parent positively, and I'll admit I hope that rehashing
these situations will reinforce my knowledge of positive parenting,
and help me apply positive parenting techniques more often.

What Happened: Today Delphine (6) was invited to a friend's birthday party. Fifteen
minutes before we were to leave for the party, I told Delphine it
was time to get ready. She was wearing a stained t-shirt and a pair
of leggings with a hole in it, so I told her she would have to
change into something nicer.

She hated that idea. She wanted to wear what she was wearing,
because (she said) she didn't have any other leggings. (It was
a gymnastics party so she wanted to wear leggings rather than
jeans or a skirt.) I stuck to my guns and explained that in our culture
we show respect for people by wearing clean clothes to their
gatherings. Delphine countered with "But Erika won't care!"
Which is probably true, but I pointed out that Erika's mom
will care, and she did most of the work for the party. We finally
got to the point where I said I wouldn't take her to the party
unless she had some clean clothes on.

The situation was resolved by Blake going upstairs with Delphine
to help her pick out something appropriate—she ended
up borrowing a pair of leggings from Cordelia. It took quite a
lot of gentle persuasion and friendly helpfulness from Blake
to get everything smoothed over.

What I Wish I Had Done: I wish I had started the whole
conversation by saying "In our culture, we show respect and
affection for
people by wearing clean, tidy clothes to their special
occasions. Are you happy with the clothes you're wearing, or
would you like to find something else?" Alyson Schäfer
(can I just call her Alyson?) calls that TTFT, or Take
Time For Training. Usually she's talking about more mechanical
things, like doing up a zipper or cleaning a bathroom, but
it applies to social conventions, too. Giving Delphine
ownership of the problem would make her feel responsible, and
there's a pretty good chance she would have just changed without
a fuss.

If she still protested I could have gone with the
"when-then" tactic: "When you're dressed for a birthday
party, then I will take you to the party." That's a little more
coercive because I'm basically saying, "I won't take you
to the party until you're dressed the way I want you to be
dressed", but the wording is impersonal and it does
reflect the needs of the situation (societal norms) rather
than what I want. (Rather conveniently, what I want is for
Delphine to conform to societal norms. When she's older she
can go to parties dressed like a slob, but she's still
young enough that I don't think she fully understands the messages
that dressing inappropriately sends.)

Finally I wish we had started the whole thing earlier. One of
Alfie Kohn's parenting guidelines is "Don't be in a hurry",
and it's great advice if you can manage it. So much household
tension is caused by running short of time. If I had left more
time, we might still have had the drama but at least it wouldn't
have forced us to rush out the door after Delphine got changed.

In the end, Delphine got to the party on time, in nice clean
clothes, and hopefully we all learned something.